Has Mary Jane Watson Been Re-Cast for The Amazing Spider-Man Sequels?

If Internet rumors are to be believed, it looks like there is something of a major behind-the-scenes shake-up going on at Marc Webb’s “The Amazing Spider-Man 2″, with Shailene Woodley on the outs as the franchise’s Mary Jane Watson.

Movieweb quotes unnamed sources “very close to the production” as saying that Woodley has in fact been dropped from the series entirely, and will be replaced by Canadian actress Sarah Gadon (below), who recently made a name for herself on a pair of David Cronenberg films, “A Dangerous Method” and “Cosmpolis”, as well as starring in Brandon Cronenberg’s (son of David) debut film, “Antiviral”.

This comes on the heels of Woodley’s role as Mary Jane Watson being officially snipped from “The Amazing Spider-Man 2″ completely (despite the fact that Woodley had already shot scenes for the film), with Mary Jane set to be introduced in “The Amazing Spider-Man 3″ instead. Which made sense, since Emma Stone is still playing Gwen Stacy, Spider-Man’s love interest in the sequel, and it was probably a bit much to squeeze in another love interest for the superhero before the old one was even out of the picture.

ET Canada seems to have confirmed Movieweb’s story with this tweet from just a few hours ago:

So why did they decide to re-cast Mary Jane Watson? One rumor has the producers agreeing with Internet fanboys that Woodley wasn’t “pretty enough” to play Mary Jane, who has always been shown in the comics as something of a sexpot. Woodley, well, is probably not that, and I can’t vouch for her acting talents pro or con, since I’ve never seen her in anything. And I guess set images of Woodley in “The Amazing Spider-Man 2″ just didn’t wow anyone who saw them.

Then again, Woodley could just be too busy to do another movie franchise and opted out voluntarily, especially now that her role in the film has been pushed back to “The Amazing Spider-Man 3″, which won’t be out until 2016 anyway, which would put production around 2015. That’s a pretty long commitment to be just sitting on the sidelines.

Besides, Woodley already has her own YA movie franchise in the pipeline that she’s fronting (you can see fresh images of Woodley from “Divergent” here), so I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a mutual parting of ways, and nothing to do with Woodley not being “pretty enough” for Mary Jane Watson.